Summary
The distributor portal in Encapto MSP allows distributors to help differentiate and scale partner MSPs by:
- create partner MSP accounts from a template, with predefined inventory catalogue items, products and any required custom provisioning Blueprint steps
- if desired, co-manage end customer orders from all partner MSP accounts.
- track partner usage of the Encapto MSP platform
Getting started
The first step is to configure the MSP template. This is effectively a specially marked MSP account that will be copied when creating new MSP accounts. The MSP template defines:
- Inventory catalogue items; which itemises the different hardware, software and services that MSP partners can resell.
- Products; which bundle inventory catalogue items into plans and add-ons with pricing. These bundles can then be sold by the MSP partner to end customers using Encapto MSP's built in white-labelled web-store or CSV upload.
- Blueprint steps; these are additional provisioning steps that further customise the order provisioning flow. For instance, steps can call other systems and services via webhooks or even manual steps to enable provisioning of services not built in to Encapto MSP, or to register relevant information into other systems (e.g B/OSS).
New MSP accounts will get a copy of all these items on initialisation, and are independently managed from the original MSP template, as well as any other MSP accounts. Each MSP account has:
- its own vendor integration configuration (though, if desired, that can be the same configuration as other partner portals)
- its own branding, including the end customer portal, web-store and email communications to the end customer
- its own list of customer accounts, subscriptions and orders
Changes made in a MSP partner portal do not affect the MSP template or any other partner portals. Finally, distributors are able to see end customer orders of all their MSP partners and, if desired, can fulfil manual steps.
Bulk changing existing MSP partner accounts
If you wish to make a change to all your existing partner MSP accounts (e.g. replacing a inventory catalogue definition for all MSPs or updating product bundles) please contact our support team and they can help roll-out the update via scripts. Changing the MSP template does not automatically change existing MSP partner portals.
Manage Service Providers
Use this page to view and manage your managed service providers.
Configuring an MSP Template
The MSP template is used to clone new MSPs. Effectively, it is a specially marked MSP account with its own login credentials and its own vendor configuration (e.g. Meraki). Neither the credentials nor the vendor configurations are copied to new MSP accounts. The vendor credentials should be lab accounts in order to test the MSP template configuration. A MSP template initialises new MSP accounts with:
- default inventory category items (see here)
- default products (see here)
- default Blueprint steps (see here)
You will need to login as the MSP template user to manage the MSP template.
Once logged in as a MSP template user, you can create the required inventory catalogue items, products and blueprint steps, and you can test the configurations with your own lab equipment by using CSV upload or the built in web-store.
Note that any customers, subscriptions and orders are not copied from the MSP template. Please refer to the Administrator Portal documentation for more information on how to configure these items.
Creating new MSP accounts
Once you have defined the MSP template (as above), you can create new MSP accounts. New MSP accounts will send an invitation to the partner email address, where upon they will need to setup their own account password, branding and vendor integration details via the built in MSP On-boarding wizard. Once configured, they will have access to their own MSP account, which will contain a copy of the defined inventory catalogue items, products and blueprint steps from the template. Any changes or additions they make in their account will not affect the MSP template and will not affect any other MSP account.
To create a new service provider:
- Login to Encapto MSP using your distributor account credentials
- Navigate to the "Service Providers" page on the left hand side navigation menu
- Click the 'New' button on the top right
Tracking Point Usage
The “Service Providers” page allows you to download the previous months usage of any of your MSPs. Use the search function to find the MSP, and click ‘Download Usage’. This will download an Excel file detailing the MSPs usage for the previous month.
Managing Orders
The “Orders” page allows you to view, and if desired, action, orders from all the your partner MSP accounts.
This page behaves exactly like the MSP’s own orders page, but with the ability to see orders from all the MSPs you manage. See the documentation here for more details.
Note that you have a service provider filter next to the search bar.
